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by scooter318

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i have a friend of mine who got some spyware on his computer and it won't let him change his homepage back to what it originally was.He changes it and it stays for the time being but once he closes IE it goes right back to about:blank,i have ran every spyware program that i have and it still won't let his homepage stay to what he sets it.Any help would greatly be appreciated.

8 replies

by willcomp

Download and run CWShredder if you haven't already. Also check out Tools menu in Spybot (must run in Advanced Mode).

Dalton

by bobho

There are multiple ways to get spyware and there are multiple ways that spyware works. I can't tell you how many systems I've cleaned up over the years. If you've ever connected to the internet (even one time) or you've ever gotten any email then you have the potential for having spyware/malware on your pc.

Here's a great link explaining how spyware works and how to remove it:

http://www.spywareinfo.com/articles/hijacked/

Cheers,

RW

by black_eyed_pea

Download the utilities listed at the bottom of this post and then try this:

Spyware Removal Checklist

1. Boot into Safe Mode with Networking (some spyware can only be removed in Safe Mode).
2. Open Add/Remove programs and remove any application you do not recognize.
3. Install Spybot Search & Destroy, update it, and run it on the infected system.
4. Install Ad-Aware, update it, and run it on the infected system.
5. Launch HijackThis and click the Scan button. Make sure you run this after other malware removal apps. (WARNING: Reference the HijackThis tutorial at http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/htlogtutorial.html before removing anything.)
6. Reboot and run both Ad-Aware and Spybot again until the system is clean.
7. Launch Internet Explorer and browse the Web to verify Winsock was not broken while removing
spyware. If you cannot browse the Web, run the WinSockFix utility and perform another Web test.

Ad-Aware - http://www.lavasoftusa.com
CWShredder - http://cwshredder.net/bin/CWSInstall.exe
Spybot Search & Destroy - http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/
WinSockFix - http://www.spychecker.com/program/winsockxpfix.html

by jerrbear

Webroot's Spysweeper will help protect against homepage changes. It will confirm a change to your homepage, and you select "NO" to keep your original homepage. It is a little annoying, because the page keeps wanting to change, but just click on "NO." I am working to see if the product will actually clean out the about:blank spyware, but it will not clean it from its normal mode. Will continue to work with it and try some of the solutions presented in all of these threads.

Good luck to you and your friend.

by husp1

just looked at a posting on another site about this lil gem. try a item called hijack this (available at major geeks) but be aware that this is not a toy and you could really mess up your system if used incorrectly

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